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Angola and the Legacy of Stalinism Ash Eberle Abstract: In this essay I will investigate how the legacy of Stalinism still affects today, arguing that it negative- ly impacts the current possibility of an actual national Marxist-Leninist movement taking root in Angola. I furthermore argue that the four main institutions through which the party in control of the Angolan gov- ernment holds power—that is, the institutions of presidential patronage, the elite government bureaucracy, denial of the legitimate rights of ethnicities, and severe restrictions on the press and political freedoms— were inherited from Stalinism, and it is these four institutions that also serve to demobilize and demoralize workers. Stalinism has not only led to the collapse of the national workers’ movement there, however; it has also paved the way for an incredibly corrupt, bureaucratic, and authoritarian form of crony capitalism that deprives the great majority of Angolan people their most basic social and economic rights. This in and of itself makes it even more difficult for the workers’ movement to be revived and for a truly Marxist-Le- ninist revolution to take place. It can be said, then, that overall the legacy of Stalinism has deprived Angola the opportunity to become actually independent and free.

In the wake of the collapse of the ever; it has also paved the way for an incredibly corrupt, and the Eastern European socialist bloc, perhaps the most bureaucratic, and authoritarian form of crony capitalism important question for twenty-first century Marxists con- that deprives the great majority of Angolan people their cerns the legacy of Stalinism, namely: What are its conse- most basic social and economic rights. This in and of itself quences regarding the worldwide anti-capitalist movement makes it even more difficult for the workers’ movement to today? And, following that, how can we overcome these be revived and for them to organize a truly Marxist-Le- consequences to build a stronger, more resilient move- ninist revolution. It can be said, then, that the legacy of ment so as to prevent Stalinism from resurfacing in the fu- Stalinism has deprived Angola the opportunity to become ture? While the latter question is beyond the scope of this actually independent and free. essay, the first question is a readily addressable first step Before delving in to the substance of my argu- toward answering it. For the continent of Africa, I believe ment, I would first like to clarify what I mean by Stalinism that Angola is an important case study for being able to more broadly, and by Afro-Stalinism more specifically. In appreciate and understand the long-lasting consequences his essay “Doomed to Degeneration: Afro-Stalinism—To- of Afro-Stalinism in particular. Understanding the prob- ward a Genealogy,” Nimtz (Unpublished) offers a very lem, as the saying goes, is the first step toward solving it. In concise definition of Stalinism: this essay I will investigate how the legacy of Stalinism still …[It] is fundamentally and objectively—in affects Angola today, arguing that it negatively impacts the spite of the rationalizations offered by its current possibility of an actual national Marxist-Lenin- practitioners and apologists—a counter- ist movement taking root in Angola. I furthermore argue revolutionary current within the workers’ that the four main institutions through which the party in movement. Exactly because it wraps itself control of the Angolan government holds power—that is, in the mantle of the real communist move- the institutions of presidential patronage, the elite govern- ment—especially in the prestige of the Bol- ment bureaucracy, denial of the legitimate rights of ethnic- shevik revolution—it can be a more effective ities, and severe restrictions on the press and political free- counterrevolutionary force than the reac- doms—were inherited from Stalinism, and it is these four tionary right. (p. 2) institutions that also serve to demobilize and demoralize I argue that Stalinism created a movement in Angola that was workers in the labor force. Stalinism has not only led to the not only a more effective counterrevolutionary force than collapse of the national workers’ movement there, how- the reactionary right, but in being so counterrevolutionary,

1 actually ended up becoming the reactionary right after other ails of crony neo-colonialism. I will save the unpleas- ’s so-called “retreat from Africa” (Hughes, quot- ant details for expansion later in the body of this essay. ed in Nimtz, p. 1). Afro-Stalinism, then, differs primari- ly from Stalinism in Europe because of its added layer of The Origin of Stalinism in Angola neo-imperialist exploitation. Afro-Stalinism, in addition In mapping the effects of Stalinism in Angola, it to striving to destroy workers’ movements in Africa from is necessary to first place the issue in its proper histori- the inside out, also seeks to destroy national liberation cal context by tracing the origin of Stalinist roots in this movements from the inside out. In the parts of Africa it part of Portuguese-controlled Africa, namely within the infiltrated, including Angola, it operated under the guise background of the Movimento Popular de Libertação de of assisting national liberation movements. What the his- Angola (MPLA)—which has been the main party in pow- torical record shows, however, is that a primary goal of Af- er in Angola since the mid-1970s—through its connec- ro-Stalinism was not to actually liberate African colonies, tions with the Portuguese (PCP). The but to change the benefactor of African colonies’ depen- MPLA has its origins in the Angolan Communist Party dency—both economic and political, but the latter more (PCA), which was born in October 1955 as a clandestine so—from the Western imperialist powers to the Soviet political organization geared toward the independence of Union. An illustrative example of this for Angola is when Angola from colonial rule. Not only was the PCA heavily Brezhnev used ’s victory in Angola in 1975 to “bur- influenced by Portuguese ‘Marxists,’ but César and Mar- nish Moscow’s claims to be the champion of Third World cum (1969) concur that the PCA itself most likely “did not liberation” (Gleijeses, 2013, p. 70), even though the Krem- amount to much more than an overseas cell of the Portu- lin was initially angered by and opposed to Cuban inter- guese party, organized by European civil servants” (p. 28). vention, fearing that it would upset the balance of pow- The problem, however, was that it was not Marxism that er with the . Indeed, Valenta (1978) writes: entered Angola through this arm of the Comintern, but The main objectives of Brezhnev’s leader- Stalinism (Nimtz, p. 3). The PCP itself was an internation- ship in African countries can be summed al arm of the main Stalinist party in the Soviet Union, and up as follows: first, to gain strategic benefits, perhaps the most infamous and doctrinaire one of them all mainly by generating local support for a So- in Western Europe. From the late 1920s until 1943, under viet naval presence along the coasts; second, the ideological guise of proletarian internationalism and to weaken U.S. and Chinese political and with the global backing of the economic ties in the region; and, third, to (Comintern), the Soviet Union spread its political influ- gain political and economic benefits, mainly ence—that is, Stalinism—to every populated continent in by attaining a voice in Africa’s affairs and en- the world. Rather than use this influence to assist the glob- hancing (if only in the long run) economic al class struggle and the independence projects of nations ties with African countries. (p. 7) subjugated under colonial rule, however, the Stalinist par- The devastating effects of this policy of political manipula- ties would defang revolutionary movements, or only help tion and fostering dependency cannot be overstated; when them insofar as their assistance was rewarded with a shift the Soviet Union collapsed, it was in no position to main- from politico-economic dependence on colonial powers tain control over its satellites, and the Western imperialist to dependence on the Soviet Union instead. Stalinist influ- powers and Japan were presented with a perfect opportu- ence on the PCA followed this same line through the arm nity to pick up neo-colonialism in Africa right where they of the PCP. While the Comintern claimed to be spread- left off.1 In other words, the independence projects that ing Marxism, what it was really spreading was Stalinism. the USSR supposedly championed in Africa were largely In 1956, barely a year after its initial formation, failures; these former colonies ended up no more econom- the PCA merged with the Partido da Luta Unida dos Af- ically—and therefore politically—independent after leav- ricanos de Angola (PLUA) to form the MPLA. Viriato da ing the socialist bloc. In Angola, this has resulted in the Cruz, former President of the PCA, took up the title of loss of countless lives and the suffering of millions because Secretary General of the MPLA while of civil war, abject poverty, epidemic disease, and all the took up the mantle of the new organization’s President.

1 As a tangential note, I argue that this is the main difference between Soviet intervention and Cuban intervention in Angola. On the issue of ’s attempted coup, in which the Soviets sided with Alves and Cuba with the MPLA’s right to determine internal matters inde- pendently, Foreign Minister Paulo Jorge remarked: “There was a huge difference between them [the Soviets] and the Cubans. The Soviets wanted to tell us what to do” (Gleijeses, 2013, p. 75).

MURAJ • z.umn.edu/MURAJ 2 Volume 1 • Issue 1 Both men were educated either in itself or by Civil War and the MPLA’s Institutions of Power the Portuguese colonial educational system in , The ’s prolongation was due and both held close ties with the PCP. From the Portu- to a mix of many interconnected factors, and the nature guese Stalinists, the MPLA inherited both a warped form of the leadership of the MPLA was undoubtedly one of of democratic centralism1 as a guiding principle and the them. Agostinho Neto was also well-known for nurturing drive to create an autocratic one-party state. Of the main a cult of personality around himself; and, in true Stalinist nationalist parties in Portuguese-controlled Africa at the fashion, secured this cult by force when in 1975 factionist time, the MPLA was the one that was the most influenced tendencies, spurred on by the power vacuum left gaping by the PCP—and even served as the very inspiration for in the wake of independence from Portugal, arose with- the term ‘Afro-Stalinism’ (Nimtz, p. 33-34). Indeed, as in the rank and file of the MPLA. By 1977 this infighting Guimaraes (2002) remarks, “the links between the PCP culminated in an unsuccessful attempt at a coup d’état, and the MPLA are clearly long-standing” (p. 39). Nimtz led by former guerrilla commander Nito Alves, and Neto summarizes the general effect of Stalinist parties’ influence took it upon himself to eliminate all potential rivals with- in Portuguese-controlled Africa quite nicely: “…Stalinist in the party in the form of a bloody ‘rectification’ process organizational norms aimed to create structures to estab- (Nimtz, p. 50). This political purge harks back to Stalin lish bourgeois nationalist—as opposed to socialist—re- himself, when he consolidated power in Russia by 1928 by gimes, which would empower a ‘state capitalist’ bourgeoi- forcibly eliminating or exiling any Bolshevik leaders left to sie, ruled by party-military castes, integrating them into pose a threat to his position—and thus a similar situation, ‘post-colonial’ but necessarily dependent ruling classes” a violent and autocratic one-party state, was cemented in (p. 34-35). This link with the PCP continued for some time Angola. Neto’s cult of personality and influence in the ex- after Angola gained independence from Portugal, “with ecutive served to institutionalize a system of presidential the PCP playing an intermediary role between Angola patronage, which itself ensured that the MPLA would re- and on the one hand, and Portugal on the main insular and divorced from the voices of the Angolan other” (Young, 1988, p. 168). At the same time, other na- masses, who were suffering terribly because of the civil tionalist liberation movements were competing for influ- war. The 8th World Congress of the United Secretariat of ence among the masses, including the União das Populcoes the Fourth International resolution (1965) on revolution- de Angola (UPA) and the Partido Democratico de Angola ary movements in Africa reads: (PDA), which would come together to form the Frente Na- The MPLA has…considerable backing cional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA). A few years after abroad…particularly from the Soviet Union. the breakout of the Angolan War of Independence against … On the plane of conscious leadership, the Portuguese colonial rule in 1961, the FNLA splintered into MPLA claims to have a more progressive, another group, the União Nacional para a Independência even socialist, orientation. However, this has Total de Angola (UNITA). The MPLA, UNITA, and the not prevented it from having ties with dubi- remnants of the FNLA simultaneously fought against the ous formations and from continuing to fol- fascist Portuguese army until victory in 1974, whereupon low a confused line. Its relative strength in they promptly devolved into armed conflict amongst each negotiations is derived less from its intrinsic other. Independence was finally legally granted from Por- influence than from the support granted it tugal in late 1975. Due to indecisive leadership and a lack by the wing of the Communist movement of clarity or consensus on the direction that postcolonial adhering to the Soviet bureaucracy. (p. 4) independence should take, however— (Stalin- A close reading of the document makes it ism) or capitalism, Luandan workers’ rule or quite obvious that the previous passage is subtly con- hegemony, etc.—Angola’s War of Independence degen- demning of the influence of the Soviet Union on the erated into a civil war between the three factions. It was then-bourgeoning revolutionary movement in An- a war of the bloodiest and most corrupt kind that would gola. For the MPLA, the civil war itself began under last for another few decades until 2002, the ramifications of which still gravely affect Angola and its people today. the pretext of stemming and eventually eliminating what they considered to be a counterrevolution, in the form of UNITA and FNLA resistance. As the war 1 I do not use the term ‘democratic centralism’ here in the Leninist sense. Instead of policy being decided centrally in the party and being binding on all members, in Stalinism policy is decided by the head of the party with limited, if any, input from other members, and is expected to be carried out unquestioningly through the ranks.

MURAJ • z.umn.edu/MURAJ 3 Volume 1 • Issue 1 progressed, however, and especially after the MPLA and have at the very least a minimum standard of living. officially shed any pretense of Marxism- I will touch on this deprivation of their basic social, polit- in 1990, it instead became a pretext to halt Angola’s ical, and economic rights in greater detail in the following still-incomplete democratic transition and to restrict section, but for now I will simply say that this ethnic tension democratic liberties in order to defend the interests exacerbates and reinforces splits among and between ur- of a bourgeois elite whose wealth “depended on the ab- ban workers and rural peasants, thereby gravely hampering sence of strong checks and balances” (Hodges, 2004, class consciousness and genuinely revolutionary Marxism. p. 201). This is because it had never actually practiced The corruption of the elite MPLA bureaucracy is Marxism-Leninism to begin with, but Afro-Stalinism. largely obscured by repression of the press and any and The system of presidential patronage first imple- all political dissidents, by either armed force (e.g. police mented by Neto both relies on and sustains the echelons of intervention) or bribery. Even after economic liberaliza- the MPLA’s elite government bureaucracy. This bureaucra- tion and the drafting of the new constitution in 1992, the cy, by being overgrown and rife with redundant posts and MPLA has continued to resort to repressive security laws unnecessary institutions, severely hampers administrative inherited from the colonial regime or the former ‘Marxist’ efficiency. Not only that, the bureaucracy is essentially an one-party state to silence political opponents and critical oligopoly or monopoly that distorts the capitalist market journalists (Hodges, p. 85). The government is content to favor special business interests, “at the expense of poten- to both ignore existing laws and create new ones if and tial rivals, and in certain cases the adoption of explicit pol- when it suits them. In 1999, for example, repression of in- icy measures to limit competition for the same purpose” dependent press organs increased with the Angolan gov- (Hodges, 2004, p. 76 & 138). It draws membership primar- ernment’s introduction of a law which “provided harsher ily from the wealthier rung of the Mbundu ethnic group sentences for defamation and increased to 30 days the pe- based in and around urban Luanda, including many mes- riod during which journalists could be detained without tiços. During the time Neto was still alive, the MPLA was charge” (Hodges, 2004, p. 98). This gave rise to the suspi- much stricter about adhering to these recruitment criteria, cion among members of the international community that even going so far as to outright reject the idea of recruit- the civil war was being used as an excuse to forcibly silence ing from other ethnicities and tribes, such as the Ovim- journalists and newspapers, especially those interested in bundu, Kimbundu, or Bakongo, which together make up providing coverage on the war and corruption inside the the majority of the Angolan population (Marcum cited in government. This became particularly evident with the Keller, 1987, p. 75). The former is especially subjected to high-profile arrest and detainment of Rafael Marques in political discrimination because of UNITA’s mostly Ovim- that same year, who was outspokenly critical of President bundu membership, which has ironically “contribut[ed] to dos Santos and accused him in several articles of corrup- UNITA’s capacity to survive over the years as an effective tion and incompetence. Marques, after being held for for- guerrilla movement” (Rothchild & Foley cited in Keller, p. ty days in a prison in Luanda, was tried and sentenced to 302). This policy of ethnic exclusion, too, is an eerie echo serve six months. Commenting on the ruling, Marques re- of Stalin, who held a similar position on the independence marked, “Press freedom in Angola is still vulnerable today of ethnicities who were oppressed under Russian czarism to arbitrary attack from the executive and the chilling cli- before the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. This inflexibility on mate of repression that results. The steps Angola must take the issue of negotiating with nationalist or ethnic separat- to prevent future transgressions are clear: decriminalize ist movements—something that has, again, prolonged the defamation, establish truth as a complete defense in defa- civil war with UNITA—draws extensively on the writings mation cases, repeal special protections for the president of Stalin (Rothchild & Foley cited in Keller, p. 305). Fol- and chief executive, and ensure due process for defendants lowing Neto’s death and dos Santos’s rise to power, these throughout the judicial system” (Goldston, 2004). Even restrictions on party membership lessened some, but the though the civil war has officially ended, the press still majority of MPLA members today—and therefore the have very little, if any, freedom to speak out against the majority of government officials, even after the abolition government. Just in 2015, activist Marcos of the one-party state—are still Mbundu and/or mestiços. Mavungo was arrested and tried on charges of sedition, As such, given the insulated character of the MPLA and and in 2016 seventeen more human rights activists—the the crony nature of its capitalism, all other ethnicities in so-called “15+2”—were detained and sentenced to several Angola are denied many of their fundamental rights, in- years in prison for planning to organize protests against cluding the right to participate in the political process the state. All of these wrongfully detained citizens had

MURAJ • z.umn.edu/MURAJ 4 Volume 1 • Issue 1 done nothing but catch the government’s attention by The term ‘oil nomenklatura’ has “highlight[ing] economic mismanagement and corruption been used generically to encompass the in their critiques of the government” (Moorman, 2016). nexus of elite families, interrelated through marriage and political allegiance, who have Petro-Diamond Capitalism in Angola Today benefited from this ‘manna’. … Suffice it to Following the renunciation of what they consid- say that oil-financed patronage has been a ered Marxism-Leninism and the 1991 collapse of the So- fundamental part of the strategy pursued by viet Union, the MPLA proceeded with plans for economic President dos Santos for the consolidation liberalization. This meant the crony privatization of key and conservation of political power… sectors such as oil, diamonds, housing, and agriculture. Along with the profits to be made In reality, however, ownership of these industries did not from diamond trafficking, the diamond con- even change hands—they still belonged to government of- cessions awarded since 1994 have become ficials, who could now control economic resources with one of the new nomenklatura’s main avenues even less transparency than before. This crony privatiza- for accumulating wealth, while the shad- tion was possible only because of the absence of those owy procedures for awarding the conces- previously mentioned strong checks and balances—the sions provide another prime example of the basis of which lies both in the nature of pre-independence non-transparency of resource management Portuguese rule and also in the nature of Stalinism itself, and the role of presidential patronage in which depends on an elite insulated from accountabili- building and cementing alliances. The ten- ty from the very citizens that they supposedly represent. dering process has been opaque and it is well On the successive phases of Angolan governance, Hodges known that the final decisions on diamond writes: “The starting point, after independence, was the concessions are taken by the president [dos superimposition of a Stalinist political model on the al- Santos]. Significantly, several concessions ready highly centralized and authoritarian political system have gone to companies set up by army fees, inherited from Portuguese colonialism.” 1 When Neto died suggesting that the diamond concessions in 1979, one of his Ministers, José Eduardo dos Santos, have been one of the main ways of rewarding quickly took up the mantle of President and all of the cor- military loyalty. (p. 61 & 190-191) rupt government institutions that he left behind. These in- This statement has very insidious implications for cluded presidential patronage, the government bureaucra- the nature of Angola’s government, even beyond the ob- cy, democratic centralism, and corruption of the Angolan vious. Up until the end of the civil war in 2002, the main labor movement. He did not just take them up, however; areas of the country under UNITA control were rich in di- he deepened and strengthened them, particularly the in- amond and mineral resources; the prolonged civil conflict stitution of presidential patronage. This institutional ex- seems to have been motivated out of the greed of the MPLA pansion has resulted in a state of deep and widespread elite rather than out of any real concern for the safety and corruption. It is no coincidence that the overwhelming wellbeing of the Angolan people. This is especially obvi- majority of cadre in the state bureaucracy were born into a ous when one considers the economic state of the coun- select few wealthy families from the capital of Luanda. As try; not only are all sectors of the economy doing poorly was previously intimated, this has been the pattern for the except those which benefit almost exclusively government MPLA from the beginning—to select members not from elites (oil and diamonds), Angola also lacks in infrastruc- the most talented or qualified of the working class, but to tural development, education, and availability of social hand-pick members on the basis of familial or political and welfare services, including access to basic healthcare ties or expensive favors, essentially committing political and nutritional requirements—in spite of the fact that the incest. According to Hodges: 1975 independence constitution that the MPLA drafted Oil revenues have…had profound conse- established health care as a right for everyone (Wolfers, quences for the nature of the state and the 1983, p. 111). These resources are only available to those system of governance. First, the rent from oil who have the money to afford them, i.e. MPLA-affiliated has given the presidency far larger resourc- families based mostly out of Luanda. The civil war itself es with which to dispense patronage than has crippled agrarian productivity and forced millions of would have been the case in a non-oil state. peasants to flee to urban areas, which has had disastrous 1 Hodges, p. 47

MURAJ • z.umn.edu/MURAJ 5 Volume 1 • Issue 1 consequences given the lack of urban planning and avail- lack of both national and international accountability to ability of social resources. The MPLA has enough financ- which they are held—emboldens and encourages not just es to prolong an unnecessary civil war for decades, but complacency, but outright contentment with the status refuses to allot even the bare minimum of funds toward quo (Hodges, 2004, p. 156). Evidence of this is plain above the needs of everyday Angolans—democracy, indeed! all else in the repression of independent trade unions and The state of abject poverty in which much of workers’ organizations, especially ones that display mili- Angola’s population resides is masked by the govern- tant tendencies. In the 1970s, just after independence, the ment paying a scant fraction of their funds to social ser- MPLA began to suppress workers’ movements under the vice institutions that actually do more to serve families guise of combating ‘reactionary’ political opposition to its who are already well-off. This includes foundations like ‘revolutionary’ line. Marcum writes: “Illustrative of this the Fundação Eduardo dos Santos (FESA), as well as approach, it squashed the beginnings of an independent post-secondary education scholarships that typically go labor movement through which Luanda dockworkers had to children of government officials. Outside the flashy up- wrung economic concessions from Portuguese authorities scale areas of the cities, however, the government’s neglect in 1974 and imposed its own affiliate, the União nacional of everyday people becomes very clear. The prolonged civ- dos trabalhadores angolanos (UNTA) as the country’s sole il war has resulted in a mass migration of rural refugees, labor organization” (Marcum cited in Keller, 1987, p. 71). but without a planned system of welfare or infrastructure The fact that this suppression has continued and this has resulted in the proliferation of thousands of ram- even worsened after economic liberalization, however, is shackle slum settlements outside Angola’s major urban very telling; although trade unions independent of UNTA cities. These slums are hubs for the black market, or infor- and the MPLA are now technically legal, the develop- mal, economy. The first major confrontation between the ment of independent trade unionism “has been held back government and the urban poor occurred in 2001, when by repression and intimidation and, perhaps even more more than 10,000 families in a slum outside Luanda were important, by the nature of the labor force.” The Angolan forcibly evicted to clear land for the construction of luxury government is infamous for deploying armed para-mili- housing. The government served no eviction notices and tary police (e.g. ninjas) when confronted by strikes or the proceeded to use armed force to remove these people and threat of strikes by independent trade unions; according destroy their homes; at least two residents were shot and to Hodges, this has been very effective at instilling fear killed on the first day of the operation (Hodges, 2004, p. 58). and discouraging union militancy (Hodges, 2004, p. 94). These characteristics are ones which in and of themselves Invariably, strikes and independent trade union activi- have their roots in Stalinism. Because the oil and diamond ties have been subjected to reporting black-outs in the industries were nationalized under state ownership—and state-controlled mass media. Another key reason for trade not worker ownership, as the previously supposedly ‘Marx- union weakness is that there are so few of the working ist’ policies of the MPLA before 1990 would suggest—gov- class employed in the formal sector of the economy, and ernment officials are allowed to take the lion’s share of the especially in enterprises where there is a critical mass of wealth for themselves. Economic liberalization post-1990 workers to organize. As of 2004, according to Hodges, less has only exacerbated the problem. This means that Ango- than 0.1 percent of adults in Angola are employed in the la’s economy is essentially structured around and entirely formal economy (p. 94), which itself is severely constrict- dependent on an oligarchic government-owned monop- ed by the MPLA’s policies of presidential patronage, the oly on crude oil and diamonds—both resources that are nomenklatura bureaucracy, and the devastating impact of 1) finite by their very nature, and 2) especially vulnerable the civil war. That figure is even less than the estimated to global market fluctuations. As such, Angola’s people are approximately 4 percent of adults working in the formal subject to the whims of the government elite, while the manufacturing sector in 1967, most of whom were white economy is wracked by economic uncertainty at the best Portuguese settlers and the rest—roughly one-third—of of times, on top of being plagued with the ills of an undi- whom were forced black laborers (Revolution in Angola, versified, dependent economy, and a critical deficiency in 1972, p. 20). Everyday Angolans are unable to participate skilled labor and industrialization. Economic dependency in the formal economy for much the same reasons they on Western and East Asian capitalist powers means that are unable to be a part of the political process. Hodges the independence Angola gained in 1975 is severely re- writes: “Political participation by the mass of ordinary An- stricted. In spite of this crisis, the imbalanced wealth that golans has been hindered by illiteracy, displacement and the nomenklatura gains from the arrangement—and the the daily struggle for survival, as well as by the pervasive

MURAJ • z.umn.edu/MURAJ 6 Volume 1 • Issue 1 atmosphere of fear, which has been nurtured by the long References years of political conflict and intolerance” (Hodges, 2004, Goldston, J. A. (2005, August 31). Angola Must Comply p. 67). This weakness in Angola’s labor force has a grave with UN Freedom of Expression Ruling. impact on workers’ ability in present day Angola to orga- Retrieved March 29, 2017, from https://www.pambazu- nize a truly revolutionary Marxist-Leninist movement. ka.org/governance/angola-angola-must-comply-un-free- dom-expression-ruling. Conclusion Stalinism, and Afro-Stalinism in particular, was at Gleijeses, P. (2013). Visions of Freedom: Havana, Wash- the root of the MPLA’s rise to power in the mid-twentieth ington, Pretoria and the Struggle for Southern Africa century, and is at the root of the MPLA keeping hold of its 1976-1991. United States: The University of North Car- power even up to today. As such, whatever ‘revolutionary’ olina Press. intentions the organization’s leaders may have had in the beginning, Stalinism has had disastrous consequences for Guimaraes, F. A. (2002). The Origins of the Angolan Civil the welfare of Angola and the overwhelming majority of War: Foreign Intervention and Domestic Political Con- its citizens. These consequences include a critical lack of flict. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave. industrial development, a horrifically inaccessible health- care system ill-equipped to deal with Angola’s widespread Hodges, T. (2004). Angola: Anatomy of an Oil State. disease and malnutrition, crises of urban underdevelop- Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ment and overpopulation—all the characteristics one might expect from a country torn asunder by war for half Keller, E. J., & Rothchild, D. S. (1987). Afro-Marxist Re- a century, and then some. By fomenting civil war for its gimes: Ideology and Public Policy. Boulder, CO: Lynne personal gain, the MPLA has enabled, exacerbated, and in Rienner. some cases, caused these problems. The birth defects that it inherited from Stalinism gave it the power to be able to Marcum, J. (1969). The Angolan Revolution. Cambridge, do this in the first place. The government’s system of pres- MA: M.I.T. Press. idential patronage has resulted in a cycle of political incest and severe corruption that limits the ability of everyday Moorman, M. (2016, April 2). The deep economic and Angolans to be a part of the political process; its elite bu- political crises in Angola. Retrieved March 29, 2017, from reaucracy controls and distorts the political structure and http://africasacountry.com/2016/03/the- economic-cri- the economy for its own profit, enabling a total economic ses-in-angola/. dependence on large capitalist countries buying crude oil and diamonds that leaves millions of Angolans without Nimtz, A. (Unpublished). Doomed to Degeneration: Af- even the basic necessities for everyday survival; its pol- ro-Stalinism—Toward a Genealogy. icy of denying of the legitimate rights of ethnicities and nationalist separation movements has disenfranchised (2005). The 8th World Congress of the United Secretar- Angola’s major ethnic groups and only worsened ethnic iat of the Fourth International—1965:The Progress and conflict, serving to prolong the civil war and disintegrate Problems of the African Revolution. Retrieved March 29, the already weak trade unions; and severe restrictions on 2017, from https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/docu- the press and political freedoms ensure that this system of ment/fi/1963-1985/usfi/8thWC/usfi02.htm. bourgeois corruption endures and is able to reproduce it- self without substantial consequences. Given these condi- (1972). Revolution in Angola. London: The Merlin Press. tions, I argue that the legacy of Stalinism has not only left Valenta, J. (1978). The Soviet-Cuban Intervention in An- Angola bowing under the yoke of neo-imperialism, it has gola, 1975. also left Angola less equipped to carry a genuinely Marxist movement to fruition today. Studies in Comparative , 11(1), 3-33. Re- trieved March 29, 2017, from http://www.sciencedirect. com/science/article/pii/0039359278900297.

MURAJ • z.umn.edu/MURAJ 7 Volume 1 • Issue 1 Wolfers, M., & Bergerol J. (1983). Angola in the Front Line. London: Zed Press.

Young, T. (1988). The Politics of Development in An- gola and Mozambique. African Affairs, 87, 165-184. Re- trieved March 15, 2017, from https://www.jstor.org/sta- ble/722399.

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